The Journal
by savage-raptor
Summary: Parallel story in the Ginger Snaps timeframe. This is the journal of a man known only as Michael chronicling his life after moving to Bailey Downs and discovering the werewolf.
1. Chapter 1

_Author's Note:_

_I do not own the Ginger Snaps name, the movie contents or its characters. Only thing I own, currently, is the Michael character._

_This is a story I had started back in early 2005, so the first 20 or so chapters I have are already written and are not likely to be changing. I'm hoping that I can get some motivation posting here so I can finally finish it off. The story follows the same timeline as the movies through the eyes of a third character, Michael, who only gets involved when the first movie would have ended. From there, I take the story progessing towards a different tangent._ _This is/was my very first fanfic. As such, some things might not exactly jive (certain small details or character behavior) so please forgive me. Replies are and always will be welcomed._

_Rated M for profane language and violent scenes / imagery.

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My name is Michael. Chances are that if you're reading this, then something has happened to me. Similar chance is that if you're reading this, you won't believe a thing I say. But trust me; what I have written in this journal is the complete truth. A record must exist of what I have seen and know that these things exist.

There is no way to ease you into this. The paranormal as we know it exists. I've experienced it myself. Myths, legends and rumors that are said out there, most of them are true. Magic behind them only contribute to a small portion of them. The majority of the unbelievable is biological in nature and can be explained through somewhat scientific means.

Let me tell you my story so far. I was only a child. I lived with my parents in a rural part of Ontario, Canada. One day, when I was 10, my life changed forever. It was late at night. I had been put to bed and my parents were still up downstairs. As I was just drifting off to sleep, a monstrous howl was heard outside. Normally, that wouldn't had scared me but that sound was nothing like that of wolves or coyotes that I had grown to identify. I heard a loud bang downstairs, like someone trying to break their way through the backdoor. Eventually, I heard the door give and my parents scream. Their screams still haunt my nightmares to this day. I had pulled my covers up, but I could hear my mother and father scream in fear and horrific agony for another minute before all went quiet. Finally, and slowly, I got out of bed and made my way downstairs to see if my parents were ok. They weren't. As I peaked around the corner, they lied dead on the kitchen floor as I saw two dog's heads ripping at their bodies. The only thing was, when I got a better look, both of the heads were on the same body. They were as black as night but their eyes burned a fierce red. Their sulfurous saliva dissolved their clothes and skin, smoking as they bit into their bodies. Scorch marks appeared wherever they stepped. The floorboards started to catch fire. It's hard to explain but I could feel pure unrestrained evil emanating from this monstrosity.

I ran. I bolted for the front door and ran as fast and as far as I could. I heard the howl again seemingly coming from everywhere, encircling me. The police found me unconscious on the side of the road heading into town, bloodied and caked in mud. My house was burned to the ground. My parents' bodies were never found. In later years, I found a description similar to that creature I saw that night. It was of Cerberus, the hellhound. Guard dog of the gated to hell in Greek mythology. It was my first encounter of the surreal and by far not my last.

I was shuffled from foster home to foster home for the next 8 years. Most of my earlier families found me to be too much trouble with my paranoid delusions, antisocial behavior and night terrors. I also had many therapists who kept arriving at the same conclusion. That I was witness to a traumatic event and wouldn't be able to proceed forward until I came to terms with the reality of it. What they didn't get is that reality had no part with what I saw. At least, not a reality of their knowing. I may have been fine if that was my only encounter. However, I seemed to be a magnet for the bizarre. With every new town I was sent to, something happened that I would have thought before to be impossible. A sudden string of strange and grotesque murders. Suicidal and homicidal animals. People with odd features or powers. Not to mention seeing creatures of impossible being, never before seen. Most of my accounts, that I told, were dismissed or tried to be explained to me. Though never said to my face, I've heard people call me crazy. Now I think that's just an excuse not to deal with what's out there. Of course, you might think yourself to be crazy when a man hangs himself every night for three months in your room.

Gradually, I stopped trying to convince others of what I saw. I tried to act as normal as I could and, because of that, people started to think that I was finally fine. I still saw everything but if they didn't want to believe me that was their problem. That was at about age 14. I kept my research into these matters secret. By the end of high school, I had become well-known for my knowledge of mythology and science. I found that most of the creatures out there could have a scientific explanation for being. Three main categories were disease/infection, genetic mutation or evolution.

When I turned 18, I had access to the savings my parents put aside for me. Once I graduated, I moved out. I had to find a place where these things didn't torment me. Even in the big cities, they were there. Driving all across Ontario, every city, every location, seemed to have their own demons, or creatures, or something and no one noticed that they were there. Such mass oblivion would be our downfall, I had begun to think. Yet another reason for me to be writing my account in life so far.


	2. Chapter 2

_Author's Note:_

_I do not own Ginger Snaps or any material pertaining to the trilogy. All I have is Michael._

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Eventually, I had found a place that was what I was looking for. An expanding suburb called Bailey Downs. A suburb isn't always the most friendly of places. I would know, since 2 of my foster families lived in them. People always seemed to have ulterior motives or skeletons in their closets. I was able to rent a home there and felt like I might actually be able to live there. Mostly I was a hired hand, a part-timer for those who needed me. I did work with income tax receipts for families, my last foster parents were accountants, and did physical labor for some warehouses and storage facilities. But most of my stories here revolved around my work with the local greenhouse and the high school. At the school I had mostly maintenance and custodial duties and had landscaping errands with the greenhouse. At age 19, relatively new out of high school, I had a somewhat good response with the youth around me. Some, like the jocks or "popular" crowd, tried to give me a hard time or harass me. But with all the things that I had gone through in my life, their acts were nothing in comparison. So they, for the most part, gave up and went to ignoring me. I never told anyone there my history, or at least my full history. I desperately wanted a fresh start; a normal life.

I kept my head below the surface, tried not to make any waves and interacted like the rest did. Doing this, I learned a fair amount about the people there. For instance, Sam, a co-worker and employer, his family ran the greenhouse, had a second life in being the local dealer to the high school kids, mostly supplying marijuana. I had doubts that he'd get them into heavier stuff. Trina, the leader of the popular girls, seems to be dating Sam but I'm not sure if she actually likes him or if she's doing so for status. Jason is a typical horny teen jock in search of any girl that he can add as another notch on his post. The janitor I work along side with and Mr. Wayne, the guidance counselor, are a little harder to read but I think they may have a thing for young girls. If so, then I'm surprised how the school board could have hired them. Despite all of the colorful characters there, there were two that always got my attention. The Fitzgerald sisters, Ginger and Brigitte. It wasn't that I always noticed them because they were hot. Well, I did think they were, but that wasn't the reason. They always stood out. They were Goth girls; dark clothing, stringy hair, bird-skull necklaces. The younger of the two, Brigitte, almost always carried a camera with her. They went against the grain. In a society that promoted individuality but tended to lean toward conformity, these sisters did their own thing not caring about what others thought of them. Within the first few weeks of starting at the school, I tried befriending them but Ginger told me to "Fuck off" and they both left. Brigitte always seemed to follow her sister's lead. They seemed to prefer it just being the two of them, not even wanting friends. I didn't make a second attempt, but I always did try to keep an eye on them when they were around. Despite them not wanting me around, I thought they were cool.

It had been a year without any episodes or sightings on my part. I began to get comfortable and started digging in some roots. This was the first time I had done so since my parents' death. But I should have known that the dark world out there that I've discovered wouldn't let me be. I felt it first, without realizing it, that something would happen; that something was coming. A few days later, the first of the pet deaths began. At the start, investigators thought of it to be animals, wolves or coyotes, from the nearby woods. But when the numbers began to rise and the paper started giving the unknown animal the name "The Beast of Bailey Downs", I knew that something had arrived. Mass animal deaths were not uncommon around me. I felt that I should find out what this was. I had become weary of running. I wanted to stay here and live my life.


	3. Chapter 3

I spent the next few nights in the woods, against my better judgment. While I had been able to survive all of my encounters, it didn't mean that I escaped unscathed. It was on the fourth night that I found it. First I heard it. A long, low and painful howl. The sound resonated in my memory but was different from that two-headed monstrosity from 10 years ago. It was ripping apart a coyote that it killed. The thing was massive. Had it been upright, it could have been the size of an adult. It was hairless but muscular. It had a resemblance of a wolf but nothing like anyone had documented before. I managed to leave before it noticed me. Thankfully, it was too busy engorging itself. When I got back home, I opened up my books and tried to find some similarities. I came to the conclusion that it was a werewolf. Yes, a werewolf. Of the possible answers that my research produced, it seemed the most likely and explained the physical discrepancies that I noticed on it. Its paws were like extended digits and the arch of the back seemed familiar of a biped on all fours.

Afterwards, I began to find ways to kill this beast. Primarily so I can be able to live in peace, at least for a little longer, but also, if this was in fact a werewolf, to prevent anyone else from becoming it. The mythology seemed to be my best source but it was lacking the practical element. Wolfsbane and silver was said to stop the beast, but I wouldn't be able to get close enough without risking serious harm. The same went for Holy water. Some legends told of the person wearing the skin to transform into the wolf and removed it to become human again. Other legends simply told of the person changing on the full moon. Since it was a new moon when I saw it, and the fact that regular transformations like that would be too much for the human body, made me think that this transformation was a permanent change and that there wasn't a way to stop the creature by stopping the person. My best bet, that I determined, was to kill it by regular means. It was a risky move but the only one I could come up with. If it was in fact a human turned wolf, then chances are it still had mortality. But since I hadn't encountered one before, I couldn't guarantee such a thing.

I began to get prepared after I was asked to remove the carcass of a dog off of the soccer field at school. Rumor had it that Trina pushed Brigitte into it during a game of field hockey. Time was running short and I felt that wouldn't be long before it went after larger prey. The next day, however, I was at the greenhouse and saw Sam fixing his van. A huge dent was in the front fender and I could still see traces of blood in the grill and on the tires. He seemed pretty evasive with my questions. I could only assume that even he was trying to sort out what happened. The dent seemed larger than if he hit a person. I had hoped that it was what I thought it was. To satisfy me, he just said that he hit "a wolf; a big fuckin' wolf". I breathed a silent sigh of relief and let him get back to work. It looked as though Sam had taken care of my problem and in doing so, answered my question to whether those things were mortal or not.

I went on with my new life. There were no further reports of dogs being killed. That put me at ease a bit. But I still couldn't shake the sensation that something was still nearby. Only on a couple of occasions had I been able to sense the unnatural around me. The fact that I could feel the werewolf before it made its appearance was enough to convince me that there still might be something else. It felt faint but seemed to be steadily growing. Was something on its way? Worse, what if I waited too long and someone got bit? That thought scared me the most. That someone would watch themselves turn into the creature that bit them.

I decided to interpret that it was the second possibility. I would face whatever came my way. But if in fact someone had begun a transformation, I should try to find them and help them however I could. Besides, I couldn't see this person wanting to become that thing.

At first, I couldn't see anything different with those around me. I wouldn't know where to start looking anyways. Anyone could be the person I was looking for. And I doubted that I would have access to the hospital records for the past two weeks on animal attacks. Besides, with the string of animal deaths, I had hoped that someone else was keeping an ear open for such an event. My task was already hard enough. Not only did I have to find the person, I also had to manage to produce a cure. First, I had to find the cause. With my only source having been already scraped off the blacktop, I had no means to study. I didn't know whether this "curse" was in fact mystical or transmitted somehow, like with bacteria or viruses. Time was against me though. It was already the first week of October and, if I was to believe the theory of full moons, I had about three weeks until the next one on Halloween.


End file.
